


Cash Register Battlegrounds

by GettheSalt



Series: Take Your Fandom to Work [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Retail, F/F, F/M, Gen, Take Your Fandom to Work Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6880312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/GettheSalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working in retail can prove to have a lot of challenges. If it isn't the customers, it's your coworkers, and if it isn't your coworkers, it's management. Sometimes navigating interstore relationships can be the most tiring part of a work week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cash Register Battlegrounds

“Did Phil send out a closing email last night?” Grant asked as he walked into the SDR. It was a dreary morning; the sky was pissing rain and rumbling, which, Maria thought, looking at her mobile manager, matched Grant's mood. Maria wasn't sure how she felt about Grant. He was damn good at his job, and he got results that no one else she'd had in the position had been able to. He could also be something of a handful, reminding her of a strangely competent yet grumpy teenager.

“No.” She answered. It was best to keep it simple, until she was sure what Grant's state of mind was.

“'Course not.” Grant said with a tight smile, hanging up his Best Buy branded black jacket on the back of the door. “My team just nailed the activation budget – for the month – yesterday. You do realize we're only a _week_ into the month, right? My team is kicking ass, and they have a 75% attach rate and...” Grant spread his arms wide, a gesture clearly meant to take in the entire store. Or, perhaps, his issues with Phil. “Every single time we have a kick-ass day? He doesn't _actually_ send out the closing email. Doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that my team is carrying the whole store.”

Maria sighed, and glanced at her watch. “You done?”

Grant's eyes narrowed.

“The network was down, last night. I assume you got _that_ email from IT?”

Grant's face gave away he fact that he, in fact, had gotten that email. The email that had said the stores would be unable to access their internal email servers, or any of the programs that showed daily results.

“So, you're done?”

“Grant complaining again?”

Maria saw the look of vague annoyance pass over Grant's face, before the Precinct Chief, Leo, slipped past him into the room, still putting on his Geek Squad official clip-on tie. “I was just guessing. It's a day that ends in y.”

“Play nice.”

Maria was happy to hear that voice. Izzy, their product process supervisor, strode into the SDR, after Leo, closing her utility knife as she did. Izzy was one of the best of the best, and had been with the company for something like twenty-five years. The staff tended to think of her like something of a surrogate aunt. “We haven't even opened yet and you two are already at it?”

“Not quite yet, I don't think.”

Jemma, the operations supervisor, came into the office behind Izzy, hooking her keyring onto her belt. Behind her, Lincoln, the Connected Solutions senior, was nursing a coffee, bleary-eyed and quiet. His girlfriend, Daisy, had closed the night before, and it was likely that she had kept him up when she had gotten home. The full-time Geek Squad agent tended to be prone to adrenaline lasting in her system long after she had gotten home for the night, and Lincoln was nothing if not attentive to her.

Not that Maria knew any of that, as far as they knew. Dating within the building was, technically, a no-no, but it happened in every store, amongst the regular staff. So long as they behaved themselves and work and customers came first while they were within the four walls of the store, Maria turned a not-so-blind blind eye to it.

“Besides, it's Tuesday. It's too early in the week for Grant and I to be bickering.” Leo said, grinning at the mobile manager in question. “Right, Grant?”

“Mhmm.” Grant hummed, before dropping into a seat in front of one of the computers. Jemma ducked into the admin room to start getting cash tills ready for the day, and Lincoln took the computer on Leo's other side, pulling up numbers from the day before, just like Grant. Izzy laid out the papers from the stock counts she had done that morning, and beckoned Maria over to have a look, while Leo reviewed his department's productivity for the month.

It was a normal morning, for the management team, and it was only once they had all been at their routine for almost fifteen minutes, that Maria realized something. Holding up a hand to pause Izzy in her explanation of her game plan for the mass stock counts that weekend, she listened. Sensing that something was up, Lincoln, Grant and Leo all glanced her way.

The only sound that Maria could hear was the hard _clink_ of the change Jemma was counting bouncing against each other in the plastic tills. That, and, she thought, but wasn't sure, the distant sound of cheering.

“Isn't it too quiet?” She asked, looking from one to the other of each of them. “Opening staff _is_ here, right?”

Grant was the first to nod. “Bakshi's in the department. I thought I saw Hannah and Alisha at the desk.”

“Donnie's in the Precinct.” Leo added on.

“And I asked James to get the laptops started up.” Lincoln finished up. “And I think... Lance and Will are in HS this morning? I thought I heard Lance, anyway.”

“Idaho, Mike and Akela are all in the warehouse.” Izzy said when Maria looked at her. “But you're right... It's too quiet, if they're all here.”

Lincoln and Grant were the first to stand, both heading out to the floor. Leo wasn't far behind, Maria and Izzy behind him. Surprisingly, they found the sales floor empty. The laptops were all open and turned on, tablets displaying their bright demo screens. The dim sound of the demo reel music playing gave away the fact that the TVs had been turned on, but, under that...

“Are they all in the warehouse?” Lincoln asked, frowning back at Izzy.

“They have no reason to be.” Izzy said, stern, as the group of them headed that way. As they got closer and closer to the big swinging warehouse doors, the sound of cheering got louder, until Maria was absolutely sure her entire opening staff was at the back of the store.

Doing what, she didn't see until she pushed open the doors, instinctively calling out “Coming in!” to signal her arrival in the warehouse. It was generally restricted to product process associates, so everyone else was required to announce themselves, a habit she demonstrated so no one would argue.

Today, she was surprised they heard her over their laughter and cheering, but once the first person – Hannah – had laid eyes on her, the cheering came to a rolling stop.

As did the mechanical whirr of the elevating work truck they lovingly called Big Joe, and the smaller, less heavy duty one called the Wave. The JLG, the one best suited to bringing down heavy product, continued on, its operator hooting his victory.

Until...

“What the _hell_ is going on in here?”

Maria was glad for the commanding boom of Grant's voice then. Lance stopped the JLG's ascent immediately, looking over the edge of the operator basket, mimicking the glances of Idaho, who was on the Big Joe, and James, on the Wave.

Elevating races. They were having elevating races.

It looked like Maria was going to have to start the morning meeting with a reminder about proper use of heavy equipment. Just an average Tuesday.

 

~*~

 

“They warned you.”

Lincoln laughed, and Bobbi couldn't help smiling. At least he was taking this well.

It wasn't easy, being the senior of one of the sales departments. There were a lot of responsibilities that they were expected to take up every day, on top of training their associates, helping them with their sales, and making sure the department was always in tip-top physical shape. Lincoln had been promoted to senior when Maria had promoted Daisy into the Precinct. That had been a move that was both beneficial to the Geek Squad, and to keep the peace. It was widely unspoken truth that Daisy and Lincoln were an item, and Daisy being in a position of power over him would have been an issue. Thankfully, the Geek Squad had needed a new full timer, as Leo had been promoted to Chief when their old Chief, Vaughan, had been fired.

Lincoln was doing well, as far as Bobbi could tell, but after a long week, leading up to university and college students going back to school, he was feeling run down. It made sense. Over the summer, their busiest department was computers. Students needed laptops replaced, first laptops bought, tablets acquired to compliment laptops. They needed accessories for those laptops, and service to make sure their laptops were ready to go in the new school year.

It was a damn busy time for them, and Lincoln was being depended on to keep his team strong and together.

“They did. I mean, I knew it was _crazy_. I was here all the time dealing with it last summer. But I didn't know how _crazy_ it could get from this side.”

Bobbi could sympathize. True, the home theatre busy time – from the holidays (but everyone was busy, then) to after the Superbowl – had passed months ago, but she knew the feeling of the department being _crazy_ , and of feeling spread too thin. “Just gets worse every year.” She said, nodding as they walked through the empty store. They were closed for the night, and just waiting for Melinda to finish her security walk with Daisy before they all headed home. “But I think you're doing great.”

Lincoln lit up in that moment, looking over at Bobbi with a tired but happy smile. “You think so?”

“Oh, damn right. You're doing a great job keeping your team together and you guys are definitely putting up results. Fury even called you out on the district sales call today, saying you're doing great for a senior running his first back to school period.”

Lincoln's smile stayed in place while they walked. Clapping his hands together, he said, “Well. I might be tired but at least it's clearly getting results.”

“Exactly.” Bobbi said, nudging him with her elbow. “You're doing great, Linc. And it'll be over before you know it.”

“Yeah.” Lincoln agreed. “But then we're back into getting ready for Black Friday.”

“Retail is an endless cycle of getting ready for sales.” Bobbi shrugged. “And you're never really ready for them, anyway. You just hold on to the lap bar, scream, and have as good of a time as possible.”

 

~*~

 

There were two places in the store where announcing oneself was expected.

The first, and easiest to guess, was the warehouse. It was the same place where they were, at any given time, receiving a truck delivery, or moving huge and heavy product or boxes. Announcing yourself when you came in was just smart. The last thing people should want would be to stroll into the warehouse and get their foot run over by one of the work trucks. The product process team, who all but lived in the warehouse, wore steel-toed boots. The average associate didn't. It was just common sense to announce yourself when you were entering the warehouse, before exiting the red rectangle painted around the entrance that served as the 'safe zone'.

The second place in the store that required announcing yourself, and, in fact, asking for permission to enter the area, was the Geek Squad precinct.

Now, it was true that the precinct wasn't an area where heavy product was being moved at any particular time. The doorway was too small to ever fit any of the work trucks through, so there was no danger of being run down. But the precinct was absolutely a high security area.

People regularly gave their laptops, computers, and tablets to the Geek Squad to be repaired, or cleaned, or upgraded, and, often, to have their data backed up, or transferred to a newly purchased hard drive or computer. Those people trusted that their data and products would be safe with the Geeks, and that was the way the company liked to keep it. There was a lot of value in a single precinct. It just made sense that anyone who _wasn't_ a member of the Geek Squad needed to ask permission to come into the room.

For the most part, that didn't apply to leadership that was at supervisor level – like Jemma and Izzy – and above – Grant, Phil, and Victoria were all great examples of that.

But, sometimes, when the store was dead, and Leo just really needed a good laugh, it was nice to mess with them.

“You know the rules, Grant.”

Daisy snorted, from where she was sitting at the tech bench, meticulously taking the back plate off a laptop to check it for water damage. While she placed the tiny screws on the magnetic mat in front of her, she asked, “Can he even hear you through that door?”

Leo looked away from Grant's deadpan expression on the other side of the glass window set into the precinct door, and wiggled the FM radio in his hand back and forth with a grin. The radios were, generally, used on the floor so that everyone could keep in touch and answer questions, even if they were on other side of the building. Their intended use was not so that Leo could taunt the mobile manager while he kept the door locked from the inside, but they sure were fun to use that way.

The best part was, Grant had left his keyring, the clip with the keys to every lock in the store – including this door – on the tech bench next to the Clearplex machine. Clearplex was the system the Geek Squad used to cut customised screen protectors for everything from cell phones to laptops, and as Grant was trained and capable with it, he'd just been in the precinct, applying a customer's iPhone screen protector. When he'd left to take the phone back to the customer, he'd forgotten his keys.

And now, here he was, wanting to come and get them, and finding the way barred by Leo.

“ _Oooooh_.” Bobbi's voice came over the FM. “Someone just got _told_.”

“Open the door, Leo.” Grant said, pressing the button the clip attached to his lapel, that attached the headset to the radio. Everyone in the store who was wearing a radio could hear him, and Leo normally wouldn't have done this.

Except Maria and Victoria were on a conference call with the district HR manager, Jiaying, and as such, were _not_ wearing radios, and could _not_ tell him off.

Right now, anyway.

“I'm manager Grant Ward.” Leo said into the radio. “And I think if I stare really hard it intimidates people.”

The corner of Grant's mouth twitched. Whether it was annoyance or amusement, Leo wasn't sure, but he was willing to bet on the former, given the jerk Grant gave the doorknob.

“Good one.”

“Damn.”

“He's got you there, Grant.”

Grant turned and glared over his shoulder at the mobile department at that last one. Kara shrugged, pressing down on her FM radio button.

“What? He does.”

“Do you want to start closing every Saturday night?” Grant shot back.

“Someone's _gwumpy_.”

Grant turned back around and gave Leo that glare, jerking the handle again. “Let me get my damn keys, Fitz!”

That one wasn't said over the radio, clear evidence that Grant was getting sick of his game. Leo knew when enough was enough. He was damn smart, after all.

Flicking the lock on the door from manual back to automatic, Leo turned the handle and stuck his head out, giving Grant a sickly sweet smile and unnecessarily pressing down on the button of the radio in his hand as he did. “You can come inside.”

Barely two seconds passed before Daisy was suddenly chiming in with her own radio.

“Uh, guys, if you're gonna do stuff like _that_ , do you mind at _least_ going to the Geekmobile?”

“Oh _damn_!”

“Daisy going for the throat!”

“Ohhhhh! Whatcha gonna say to _that_ , Grant?!”

“That's definitely _not_ HR friendly, but nice one, Daisy.”

“Shut up, Phil.” Grant said into the mic, shouldering past Leo and heading for his keys. Leo looked at Daisy as he did, and she shrugged.

“You knew exactly how it sounded when you said it, chief.”

Leo rolled his eyes, still smiling, nodding to Grant as he stalked out of the room.

Daisy had a point.

He had.

 

~*~

 

“You two spend too much time together.”

Daisy couldn't help it if she jumped, but she knew that she should have seen that one coming. Or at least heard it. It was almost unnatural how Melinda, their sales supervisor, could sneak up on anyone in the building at any time. It was especially annoying when she used that power to sneak up on her and Lincoln definitely not following the rules.

“I was just--”

“--Visiting?” Melinda interrupted Lincoln, raising an eyebrow. “Like you were fifteen minutes ago, when I asked why you were in the precinct in the first place?”

The precinct was generally off-limits, but, before the store opened, Leo was fine if the agents left the door open. The sales people were known to come and hang out at the desk, or, sometimes, directly inside the door, to chat, in the mornings.

Then, there was Lincoln.

Lincoln, the Connected Solutions senior, who had already made sure the department was ready for open, and who had made sure that his people had everything they needed to start when customers walked in. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. He was ready for the day.

Daisy, on the other hand, was playing catch-up, so that the units on the tech bench would be okay to be left alone and do their thing if she got caught at the desk with a client as soon as they opened. Donnie, the part time agent who had been scheduled to close the night before, had gone home sick, and it had left the precinct in a bit of a mess.

So, technically, while Lincoln was ready to go as soon as the store opened, Daisy was not.

And while it was true that Daisy had been having no trouble multitasking and moving from unit to unit while she and Lincoln chatted, Melinda wasn't going to see it that way.

“Yeah.” Lincoln filled in, looking at a spot somewhere on the wall behind the sales supervisor.

“Uh huh.” Melinda said, and then fell silent, waiting.

With a sigh, Lincoln got to his feet, defeated, and headed toward the precinct door. “Talk to you later, Daisy.”

Daisy smiled, watching as he left like a scolded puppy caught on the couch with muddy paws. “Later, Lincoln.” She met Melinda's eyes, and gestured at the row of laptops next to her. “I _was_ working on it while we talked, just for the record.”

Melinda didn't exactly smile, but she wasn't exactly frowning when she answered. “I know.”

 

~*~

 

The company had rules about inter-store relationships.

Those rules were, they were a no-no.

Dating within a store could lead to a lot of problems. Cries of favoritism – or actual favoritism – were common. Negligence to the quality of work performed came up fairly often. Complaints about associates cuddling up during work hours were heard from time to time. Even more common, when the dating couple belonged to two different departments, was the complaint about whatshisface spending too much time in whatsherface's department, flirting.

It could lead to a lot of problems, so it was a rule that the company had.

But, like some rules are, it was, at times, ignored.

And it was something that Jemma Simmons was definitely thankful for. Not only that, but she was thankful for the fact that she worked at a location that was so kind and open-minded about who a person might choose to be with, even if it was rarely acknowledged in front of the real higher-ups that couples existed in the buildings.

“It's weirder than I imagined.” Jemma said to Kara over their lunch. They had taken their break together and run to the sub shop in the same plaza as their store. “Dating the home solutions senior, and district not knowing.”

Kara nodded, chewing and swallowing before she spoke. “Well, when you think about it, how many relationships are going on in that store that no one in management even knows about?”

Jemma scoffed. “I don't think there's a single one that at least _one_ manager doesn't know about.” She countered. “They aren't all oblivious. And, technically, you and I are leadership, and I think we know about all of them, so...”

Kara shook her head and rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. “You're nitpicking at my statement with technicalities, Jem.”

“Sorry. Too many confrontational customers at customer service today. I'm in the mood to fight.” Jemma apologised, and took a bite of her sub.

“Understandable.” Kara allowed. “But, you are right. There are a _lot_ of relationships in that store. You and Bobbi. Daisy and Lincoln. Idaho and Alisha and their on again off again thing.”

Jemma nodded. “Mack and Joey are getting there.”

“Them.” Kara agreed. “Raina and Trip.”

Jemma shook her head fondly. “I'm actually quite happy with them. They've been great about being at work when they're at work. If you know what I mean.”

Kara nodded again, tapping the table top. “Are we missing anyone?”

Jemma smirked, and Kara's eyebrows furrowed for a few seconds before the switch went off in her head. “Ohhh, I don't know if they count.”

“I think they count.” Jemma said, wisely. “You wouldn't believe some of the things Leo says after he's had a little too much to drink.”

“Oh, no.” Kara countered. “I'd believe it. Anything damning?”

“Not _yet_.” Jemma ruefully reported. “Trust me, you'll know when I know. I'm still trying to win the pot.”

Kara sighed, folding up her sandwich wrapper. “I just wish they'd get it over with already. Grant could use a good roll in the hay on the regular. It might keep him a little relaxed for longer than a day at maximum.”

Jemma laughed, glancing at her phone. “You're probably right. We've also got five minutes left on our break.”

With a groan, Kara got to her feet, Jemma following, tossing their garbage out as they headed to the door, and back to the store.

“Time flies when you're gossiping.”

 


End file.
